The FCC has officially approved the pending Verizon Wireless purchase of Alltel LLC as well as the merger of Sprint XOHM and Clearwire Inc.

With these two mergers completed after months of regulatory screening by federal regulators, both companies can commence the process to consolidate respective operations and streamline infrastructure. The approval did not come without a fair amount of concessions and requirements such as the divestment of 105 markets by Alltel and Verizon as well as the enforcement of current Alltel roaming agreements for the next four years.

Sprint XOHM and Clearwire have taken the final steps to complete their proposed merger first announced in April, even as AT&T made an attempt to stall the transaction by issuing a formal objection based on regulatory concerns. The combined company will be pooling resources and infrastructure to build out a nationwide mobile WiMax network with assistance from Google, Intel, Comcast, Nokia, and Motorola.

Clearwire shareholders will vote on November 20th to formally approve the merger and complete the transaction.

I like your website…..BUT……you guys are so slow with news……..by the time you release news items they are old and outdated……I think you need a new writing staff. No longer do I see phone news breaking stories……..Cmon guys..get it together

Different sites focus on different coverage. No one site will have every news item first. To say that we are behind the times, ignores the dozens of times each week other (major) members of the mobile media pick up news from us.

Your comments are simply without merit. Will there be some times that we don’t cover a news item first? Sure. To use that to argue that we’re “slow with news” is patently incorrect. Unfortunately, the wireless industry is so large, that no team of writers can cover it all in a single day. Each member of the mobile media prioritizes. At PhoneNews.com, we cover what matters to our readers first, and then go back and cover the rest when time permits.

Did you really think the FCC was going to reject either of these two mergers? That’s why it wasn’t a priority for us to cover.

Plus, you are ignoring the world of investigative reporting that we do each week. Who is watching your back to make sure your phone doesn’t update itself into a brick? Why don’t you go ask the other members of the mobile media why they aren’t covering things like that?

WiMAX has the time on the market advantage but even though LTE is years away companies like Verizon and ATT that choose LTE as their future 4G technology will do anything to keep WiMAX as invisible as possible with the existing 3G technology. For example iPhone is one of the factors that will make the existing customers very unlikely to switch to WiMAX.